ERASMUS+ KEY ACTION 2 project - Strategic Partnership

On behalf of the steering group / authors of the application I'm extremely glad to notify that the proposal of the ERASMUS+ KEY ACTION 2 project - Strategic Partnership “Towards a common and transparent European learning and working framework through ECVET and EQAVET” has been approved for funding.

This week the Dutch National Agency of ERASMUS+ took up contact with the international florist organisation Florint as main applicant in order to proceed with the signature of the Grant Agreement.

Starting from today, the project partners will be cooperating in a three-year project.

Thanks once again for all partners’ contribution to this rewarding result.

For the application round (Call) 2015 in the Netherlands there are 43 project applications submitted. Only 12 of these project plans have been approved. The application submitted by Florint – FLORNET is on the ranking list at place 3.

Strategic partnerships are an important part of Key Action 2 ' Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices of the seven-year-long Erasmus+ program for education, youth and Sport in Europe, started on 1 January 2014. Approximately 28% of the total budget of Erasmus+ is earmarked for Strategic partnerships

The action line KA2 is meant to project initiatives aimed at solving issues in one or more educational sectors. It always concerns a collaboration of at least three different organisations from three different countries belonging to the Erasmus+ program countries (the EU Member States and five associated countries to the EU).

A strategic partnership can be applied by educational institutions and other public and private organizations that contribute to the improvement and innovation of education in the widest sense of the word. There is a great deal of flexibility in terms of activities within a partnership project possible and both small-scale and large-scale initiatives are supported.

The duration of projects can range from 24 to 36 months. The grant amount that can be requested is up to € 150,000.00 per year and with it up to € 450,000.00 for a project of three years.

Important goals within Erasmus+ are structural embedding of internationalization, inclusion in policies at European, national and organizational level and impact.

In our project we strive for a successful strategic partnership project with partners able to deployment, legitimacy, dissemination and sustainability of project results as well within as outside of the FLORNET Transnational Network for Professional Education. These activities will also take place after the end of the project. With our project we want to deliver relevant solutions for real issues at European, national, regional and organizational level play.

Project number: 2015-1-NL01-KA202-008963

Organisation: The International Florist Organisation (E.E.I.G)

Title: “Towards a common and transparent European learning and working framework through ECVET and EQAVET”

Summary:

In this project a group of 9 vocational colleges and industry organisation will work to complete this project by increasing their cooperation and education to a higher and more sustainable level.

The partners will prepare students, professionals in training and adults by offering them international learning units that are built around new and common innovative subjects in floristry. The units will be offered in an international learning environment, enriching students with both subject specific knowledge as well as a meaningful international experience.

The objective of the project will be the following:

The partners in the project aim to work towards a the mobility of students and workers between the partner Colleges (for school based training) and industry (for work based training). During the exchanges, students and workers in training should be able to complete a part of their curriculum in floristry abroad. In this project we focus on floristry in regards to mobility of students and labour to raise standards of education in floristry and improve quality of the branch throughout Europe;

These international learning units will be taught at schools, in work-based situations, and through the development of digital classrooms and MOOCs.

Through the development of units based on the core subjects from the existing curricula, the partners will be able to offer students and industry more flexible learning paths to the European labour market through mobility projects at international partner schools;

By using ECVET principles in this project, the participating partners are better prepared to exchange their students with other institutes in the future (experience with ECVET).

The exchange of students on international learning modules gives the partners involved in the project the opportunity to develop a common assessment and certification system. This will allow for international learning units to be transparent and assessed along a common transparent standard throughout the partner colleges and organisations.

The partners will commit to guard the transparency and quality of these common international units, assessments and certification systems by signing agreements that partners will abide by and review every 2 years.

During the project, the partners develop the following outputs:

Understand the competences of responsibility, Complexity of tasks and procedures, Independence, Scope, Ambiguity, Change and Range;

Training program for an outcome based learning;

Overview of National Qualifications linked to EQF;

Transparency of curricula of the partner countries,

Transparency of assessments;

Systematic use of ECVET principles amongst the partners;

Guidelines and procedures for recognition of the units (learning outcomes) for quality assurance;

Common reference unit of learning outcomes (with standards) for mobility;

A carrousel of 20 students (financed by a KA1 project) will be sent to pilot the implementation of the draft international learning units;

Nationally certified judges in floristry will pilot the implementation of the draft certification system;

A carrousel of 20 students (financed by a KA1 project) will be sent to pilot the implementation of the international learning units and their assessments;

Around 30 florists will pilot the implementation of the MOOCs.

During the project period, the project will involve:

50 vocational florist students

Teachers and staff members from partner colleges

30 florists in training

Methodology to be used in carrying out the project:

The project will be managed by a steering committee.

The partners will meet every 3 months to work on project activities and outputs. In between the meetings, the partners will develop materials that will be discussed during the meetings.

Description of the results, impact envisaged, and long-term benefits:

This project aims to raise the level of European education in floristry. The vocational courses are the starting points to increase the standard and quality of floristry in Europe. The international learning units will allow students, professionals in training and adults to educate themselves to a minimum level throughout Europe by strengthening the vocational courses. Furthermore, these international learning units will be done in colleges, work-based and in MOOCs. This allows students mobility throughout partner colleges to be assessed in the same way in all partner schools through a transparent assessment system and through a quality certification system. The same applies to adults in training. This enables Europe to reach their goal of strengthening and exporting its knowledge economy.